Of course I loved how sensuous this is…but even more, I love the poem of the soul, written in invisible ink, between each line, saying the things there that the body only can mutely strain at like a person with no tongue…

Simple meals
with scrumptious drinks made
up his restaurant
fare. “Pocahontas” was cheese
and bacon

on a split
hotdog, washed down
with root beer.
Vegetables were fries
or fresh onion rings, causing

many smiles,
future diet plans.
Today’s smile, decades
later, is at reunions
short but sweet.

Much water
over many dams
means we pray
daily, move to strong
tomorrows, spurred by writing,

reading; large
ideas continue to
refine thoughts
so you or we might
say the exact right

phrase, sentence,
paragraph that will stick in
brains so full,
hearts so swelled, lives with
little room for more.

*The “Stuber Haiku” has an A,B,A,B, C,C stanza pattern in which the syllables per line are variable in stanzas A and B (but obviously the same in A and B) and the C stanzas are always 3, 7, 3, 5, 5 in syllables-per-line. “A” here is 3,5,5,7,3 and “B” is 3,5,3,5,7. Many of these have been written in the past. The choice of odd numbered syllables is a nod to Japanese Haiku, best written in Japanese, consisting of only three lines in a 5, 7, 5 pattern. Haikus almost always mention nature AND the seasons or a season, or the change of seasons in some way. Some linguists say 7 syllables of Japanese = roughly 12 in English.